BKK (16)

By: admin

The day before my last in Thailand, I’ll admit it, I had a bit of a melt down. Barely speaking your language and being suddenly away from your roll dawg was the most culture shock I’d had since arriving. And during these adventures and the near fainting moments of heat exhaustion I felt secure with Ehren nearby. But some really amazing opportunities came up for him (and potentially us, and by us, I mean the magazine) and so I had to put my big girl britches on and remind myself I’m not alone.. And the world reminded me of this indeed. I decided to lay by the pool on my last day and ran into a kindred spirit, if I may call her that. She spoke English so right off the bat, there was commonality. Her name was Jean, a name that ranked high in comfortability with me. Jean was the name of a woman who was my sounding board growing up. After a few leisurely laps around the pool with Jean, she offered to take me out to an area with a bunch of restaurants and bars. I welcomed the chance at company. So we chatted all night or until the curfew at 10pm which lead us to our hotel rooftop and some rather stoney conversations. It’s moments like these that remind me, the world is full of lonely souls looking for the slightest bit of connection. The night ended perfectly on a rooftop in Bangkok.

The last few hours in Thailand made me realize just how much I enjoyed my stay and really want to come back to explore the resort where Jean lives in Southern Thailand and to finally tackle the crystal blue waters of Krabi. All in all, Bangkok was the perfect get away mixed with starlit weekends and bustling city life, which I’ll admit I missed a little bit from my NYC days!

THEY STOLE MY NUDIE MAGAZINE

I arrived at Tokyo (Narita) Airport and was stopped at customs. My layover was for 20 hours and initially I was excited for this layover because I wanted to visit a friend of mine who lived there. Unfortunately the timing didn’t work out because Jeremy had planned to be away at that time. :( SO, when I arrived at customs, they drilled me. “Where you come from? Why you here? Who you visit? Where you stay?” The normal stuff. Then he asked, “Why you only come for 20 hours?” Well that’s just the way it worked out”, I replied. Hmmm I guess it looks suspicious when you come from Bangkok to Japan for only 20 hours then head home!! So they gently, the way the Japanese do, tore my luggage apart. I didn’t have anything to declare.. “Woops, I forgot I had that.” They found the knives I bought for guy friends. OH and that nudie magazine… Which, wait, why’s that illegal???

“That’s a joke gift for a friend!” I said, turning bright red and now beginning to sweat. “It’s just a joke.” I said again. Ehren and I attempted to try to find a “ladyboy” magazine as a joke for our friend Sean but all we could find was some horrible (or horribly awesome) 90’s gay nudie mag of some really gross guys. So not only was I turning bright red for even having porn but for some reason I didn’t want random customs guy to think that these were the men I was attracted to. Ugh. Then they drag me behind a partition where a lady customs officer feels me up.. thank you for that, it’d been a while! Oh, I forgot to mention the feeling up was a two parter, a full on motorboat with her hands and a practical grazing of third base at the end of which she complimented me on my rack. (Thanks, doll!) In the end, I had to sign a waiver saying that I’m leaving this nudie mag with them because Japan won’t stand for this kind of thing even though I’ve seen some pretty… well, I’ll just leave it at that!!!

Tokyo was short lived. My initial thoughts were based on efficiency, order, and politeness. Ah, yes the politeness, can I get some raw, rough-talking Americans in here, pleeease? Everyone just hides behind the smiles and bowing that I’ve practically been sleeping with one eye open. HA. The city was super clean and on my way to grab some noodles in Chiba I noticed that no one locked their bikes. Whoa. Safe. The air was dry and fuzzy fire icons were non existent here, in fact I was practically freezing, which I never am! I could barely sleep that night probably because I’ve been in deep reflection mode. There’s nothing like a culture shock, a bit of travel, a language barrier, and few life-testing instances to really make you think about your life in general. Right now, I’m just excited about HOME which is now 7 hours away, Hawaii, here I come. Toodle-ooh, friends, thanks for keeping up with me. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings.